Advisory Panel

An important point was missed in the March 3 article about Act 72. It stated that the Bethlehem Area School District advisory panel was made up of "community taxpayers," and gave the impression that they were representative of the community as a whole. This was not the case. The membership was heavily weighted with people with direct ties to the district: 12 administrators, three board members, one student, five teachers and four non-teacher employees. Of the 14 parent representatives, I believe I was the only one whose child does not attend a BASD school.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission will recruit 4,000 drivers to serve as volunteers for an advisory panel — a move some transit watchers say is part of the turnpike's push to rebrand itself with the public. The Turnpike Traveler Advisory Panel aims to provide direct feedback on issues ranging from road quality to overall satisfaction and future projects. The panel will be made up of both commercial and passenger customers, E-ZPass users and people who prefer cash, and frequent and occasional users.

Bangor Mayor Joseph Capozzolo was voted chairman of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission's Consumer Advisory Council Tuesday. The state agency regulates public utilities including electric, natural gas, water, telephone and transportation service. The council, made up of 16 people who serve two-year terms, act as advisers on matters that come before commissioners. Capozzolo was appointed to the council last month by state Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton. His term is 2005-07.

An advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday recommended approval of OraSure Technologies' at-home HIV test, setting it up to be the first of its kind in the country… Standing beside a sleek German sports car Tuesday in Palmer Township, Gov. Tom Corbett warned state lawmakers not to hit the accelerator on state spending based on a couple of months of decent revenues… For Allentown, no news of hockey arena ...

An advisory committee to look at the elections process in Northampton County on Tuesday recommended some changes, but also took Chief Registrar Deborah DePaul to task for her demeanor during its hearings. The committee report said DePaul, selected as registrar in December 2005 after serving as acting registrar the previous four months, took over the meeting time and agenda with her "defensiveness" and "displayed poor judgment again and again." DePaul called the report's comments about her "irrational and insulting."

After vowing speedy delivery of lobbyist disclosure legislation, an advisory panel convened by House Speaker John M. Perzel has met only once -- and then by telephone conference call. Perzel, R-Philadelphia, announced in February the creation of the seven-member panel of ex-judges and lawyers. He vowed that all its meetings, barring the first one, would be open to the public. However, the group has no plans to sit down with the public. In fact, it might never physically gather -- in public or in private -- at all. That's because two committee members, former state Supreme Court justices Frank J. Montemuro and Nicholas Papadakos live in Florida at least part of the year and are unable to come to Harrisburg.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission will recruit 4,000 drivers to serve as volunteers for an advisory panel — a move some transit watchers say is part of the turnpike's push to rebrand itself with the public. The Turnpike Traveler Advisory Panel aims to provide direct feedback on issues ranging from road quality to overall satisfaction and future projects. The panel will be made up of both commercial and passenger customers, E-ZPass users and people who prefer cash, and frequent and occasional users.

Renee Saleh, director of financial aid at Northampton Community College, recently discussed universal college attendance for the first two years of college with other educators. Saleh is a member of the community college advisory panel of the College Board, a national, nonprofit membership association of educational organizations working together to help students succeed in the transition from school to college. The advisory panel met with Jacqueline Woods, the U.S. Department of Education liaison for community colleges, who addressed the status and potential of community colleges nationwide.

A frustrated area human relations panel last night voted to draft a letter to Easton Mayor Salvatore J. Panto Jr. asking why he has not made a formal reply on the establishment of an independent police review panel. The Easton-Bethlehem Advisory Council to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission displayed its disapproval because Panto has not made any official statement since a special March 17 meeting when advisory group members met with City Council to discuss an independent review board.

The League of Women Voters of Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton are taking another step to promote clean election campaigns in the Lehigh Valley. They are creating a citizen advisory panel on clean election campaigns to hear and evaluate complaints of dirty campaign tactics. It will complement the Leagues' earlier efforts to have candidates sign clean campaign pledges. That Code of Fair Campaign Practices program, begun two years ago, set standards for above-board, issue-oriented campaigns.

Like just about every American mayor, Allentown's Ed Pawlowski is dealing with difficult financial challenges. Tax revenue is flat or falling and expenses and the demand for services is rising. Earlier this month, Mayor Pawlowski announced an innovative approach to tackling Allentown's budget needs -- a panel of volunteer advisers. The 17 names he released include people with excellent experience in the public and private sectors, a brain trust with a lot of power. However, this proposal has a flaw: The mayor and City Council President Michael D'Amore intend to meet with the group in private.

Dozens of environmental advisory councils have been created statewide without much fanfare. But a proposal discussed for at least a year in one Northampton County township has stirred strong opinions about whether an EAC is necessary. Bud Cole favors an EAC in Lehigh Township that would help establish a recycling program, organize educational programs and analyze projects built near creeks or streams. Although the council could only offer recommendations, Eric Bodish is against it. He claims it could encroach on a person's property rights, create another level of bureaucracy and manipulate the supervisors into appropriating thousands of dollars the township can't afford.

Apartment dwellers in Hellertown beware: If borough officials get their way, you won't be welcome in most neighborhoods. Officials say you're responsible for most crime and your cars are causing parking problems in some neighborhoods, so they would prefer that you live downtown. At least that's the reasoning behind Hellertown's latest proposal to ban apartment conversions in its residential neighborhood zones. It's a bold move  one so bold that the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission has deemed it too drastic  but one Hellertown Police Chief Robert Balum believes is necessary.

State legislators could see a new bill reforming Pennsylvania's obsolete dog law by the end of next month. Jessie Smith, the state Department of Agriculture's special deputy secretary for dog law enforcement, said a new proposal could be ready by the end of February. Smith spoke Wednesday at a meeting of Gov. Ed Rendell's Dog Law Advisory Board, the panel's first gathering since officials reworked a much-maligned regulatory proposal from last year. But based on board members' statements about the new draft proposal, it won't have an easy time getting before the Legislature.

An advisory committee to look at the elections process in Northampton County on Tuesday recommended some changes, but also took Chief Registrar Deborah DePaul to task for her demeanor during its hearings. The committee report said DePaul, selected as registrar in December 2005 after serving as acting registrar the previous four months, took over the meeting time and agenda with her "defensiveness" and "displayed poor judgment again and again." DePaul called the report's comments about her "irrational and insulting."

The state will decide Tuesday whether to proceed with plans to halt gun sales for a computer upgrade over the Labor Day weekend, Gov. Ed Rendell said Thursday. A seven-member advisory panel of legislative and administrative appointees, representing both sportsmen and law enforcement officials, will meet Monday at Rendell's request to see if there's a better time to do the planned shutdown. Rendell said if there's no agreement, the shutdown will go ahead as scheduled. Advocates for gun dealers, hunters and others have complained about the timing of the improvements to a system that handles criminal background checks for gun buyers, among other things.

William Wallace Eshbach, 77, of Springfield, Delaware County, an architect who helped shape the skylines of Philadelphia and Harrisburg, died May 18 in his home. He was the husband of Hilda "Kae" Kern (Campbell) Eshbach. They were married 50 years last November. A 1941 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he opened his own architectural firm, William W. Eshbach and Associates, Philadelphia, in 1952, and two years later the firm became a partnership known as Eshbach, Pullinger, Stevens and Bruder, which operated for 20 years.

In the climactic courtroom scene of Herman Wouk's "The Caine Mutiny," the embattled Captain Queeg takes the witness stand. Queeg, played by Humphrey Bogart in the movie, is the captain of the World War II minesweeper Caine. Paranoid, petty and tyrannical, he cracks during a typhoon. His executive officer seizes command, and later is court-martialed for mutiny. On the witness stand, Queeg rants about the disloyalty of all his officers and the flawlessness of his leadership. As he plunges on with his tirade, he nervously rolls little metal balls in his hand.

During 32 years of representing people accused of crimes, has Easton attorney Gary N. Asteak heard his fair share of guilty defendants proclaim they were being railroaded? Sure. "But how about the guy who really didn't do it?" Asteak said Wednesday. "As a result of a failure of the system, he's convicted. There is no injustice worse than seeing a fellow citizen incarcerated for a crime he didn't commit, whether [because of] a cop who claims the guy made a confession, or whether it's a coerced confession, or whether it's a flawed identification, or a lawyer who didn't do the case justice."

By Sarah Fulton Special to The Morning Call - Freelance | December 27, 2006

Upper Saucon Township supervisors established an Environmental Advisory Council on Tuesday and approved the 2007 budget containing $5 million that will help the council preserve open space. Supervisors unanimously voted to form the council, which will advise them on township matters dealing with the protection, conservation, management, promotion and use of open space, recreation, and historic and natural resources. The council will make recommendations to supervisors, who hold the ultimate authority on adopting policies and ordinances governing local environmental issues.